No text, but a visual code

[Jorge_Stolfi]

I agree that knowledge isn't acquired by holding a certain position, but rather through years of dedication and the enthusiasm one puts into something.

Agreed, but there is always the "fish vs whale" problem: one can be extremely knowledgeable about some field, but that knowledge may be useless, or even counterproductive, when dealing with something that happens to be outside that field -- and one is not aware of it.

As for the distinctions between iron-gall and ochre paint and all those technicalities, I don't think it matters much in the face of an authentic and genuine document like the Voynich.

Indeed it should not matter at all for most analyses and theories.  But there are a few situations where it may be important or even crucial:

• When trying to infer the origin of the manuscript, in particular what kind or people were the Author and the Scribe, the fact that the Scribe chose ocher paint instead of iron-gall ink is an important bit of evidence;
  
• When trying to decipher the marginalia on f116v, knowing the nature of the ink is essential to estimate how much the original text was damaged by the big water spill visible in the UV images, and thus how much of what we see today is original or even meaningful.
  

All the best, --stolfi